VTC NEWS

Anne Papalardo-Blake went missing on March 18, 1980 after leaving her job in Manhattan. Two days later, investigators found a decapitated, handless body in a trunk in upstate New York.

More than 42 years ago, troopers with the New York State Police responded to a travel trunk found near a dumpster at the Hudson View apartment complex in Fishkill, New York — about 70 miles north of Manhattan. Little could be ascertained about the body of the woman inside, who was called “Jane Doe of Dutchess County”, because her head and hands were never found.

Earlier this year, Othram Inc., a Texas-based company specializing in forensic-grade genome sequencing, was asked by the FBI to take a look at the Jane Doe’s DNA. Experts created a DNA profile, prompting federal and state investigators to investigate genealogy.

 

Anne Papalardo-Blake

Papalardo-Blake works as a receptionist at the Vidal Sassoon salon on 5th Avenue in Manhattan, and she last left work around 6 p.m.

On March 20, 1980 — two days after Paparlardo-Blake’s went missing — a then-unidentified body was found in that trunk in Fishkill. Officials with the Dutchess County Medical Examiner’s office theorized the Jane Doe was in her mid-twenties, weighed about 135 pounds and stood five feet, six inches tall. They also determined the victim’s bra and shoe size.

Much of the forensic investigation focused on the trunk in which the woman was found, which was believed to have been placed near the dumpster between noon and 10:00 p.m. on March 18, the same day Papalardo-Blake went missing. The green case with black trim and brass fittings; stickers on the trunk’s exterior indicated that whomever owned it had traveled from New York City to France in 1958 and returned in 1960.

The trunk’s owner had been a woman named June Leaf, though it was unclear what relationship — if any — she might have had with Papalardo-Blake.

Anne Papalardo-Blake

Jane Doe’s information was included in NamUs in 2011, a center for missing, unidentified and unclaimed people.

So far, there have been no details released about a possible suspect in the case. Investigators continue to “put the facts together” leading to Papalardo-Blake’s murder and ask anyone with information to contact the New York State Police at 1-845-677-7300 with reference number 3020974.